Nimrods on Malta ?

[XV148]

While there are numerous images of Nimrods at Kinloss and to a lesser extent St. Mawgan, there are very few out there of Nimrods while serving with 203 Sqn. Does anyone have any interesting photographs or stories concerning the Maltese Nimrods that could help to fill a void for a publication planned for a year or so ?
Thanks XV148

[5aday]

Nimrods in Malta

I was on the first crew to arrive in Luqa on 203 sqn ostensibly to replace the venerable Shacks and ironically, the first crew to depart again during the Mintoff/ Carrington withdrawal. We didn't get very far - as far as the hold at Gozo until PLE because we didn't have Dip Clearance to go anywhere. After departing very noisily over Valetta, we landed again very quietly back on 06. The Malts were shooting 12 bore at us at our Sunspot dispersal so we moved all the machines further away from the boundary fences. We eventually left on New Years Eve to Akrotiri arriving about midnight.
That started 6 months of living anywhere and everywhere and eventually Sigo-piggin-nella living in the famous holiday camp.
Character forming? Hardly.

[Scuttled]

5aday

That sounds like a great dit abbreviated far, far too much.

Any chance of the full story please? Genuine request, I have no knowledge of these events.

[Milo Minderbinder]

"I have no knowledge of these events."

I think thats true of most of us
Did the Maltese population in general want us to go? or was the shooting just from a few extremists? I have a feeling that the UK exit from Malta is one of the least understood of our retreats from Empire
Any education would be appreciated!

[1771 DELETE]

I was there on the very last Nimrod out of Malta. By that time 203 had departed and this was a symbolic departure, flying around the island and then dropping to very low level in Grand Harbour to overfly the RN warship also departing for the final time.
This was on 120 Sqn.
Still remember the Gut, nowhere like that left anywhere.

[timex]

I was in Malta for two years from 75-77, we were constantly being briefed to avoid the local Mintoff mafia who deliberatley tried to provoke responses from the Resident UK Mil. I got to know a lot of the local Maltese (had a flat in Gzira) and they were very happy with the status quo, sadly the backing that Mintoff had from countries like Libya seemed to play a big part in it all.

End result, massive riots in downtown Sliema after one of the lads form 40 Cdo was given a hiding, the rest of the Unit took umbrage. 41 was confined to barracks for about 4 weeks afterwards to let the dust settle.

[Gerontocrat]

IIRC it was summer 1976 when a Grimsod found the Kiev on her first sortie into the Med.
For weeks up until then, Morning Prayers almost always contained the phrase, or words to the effect of: "When we pull out of Malta".
On the Monday following the discovery, and photography, of the Kiev, there was a subtle change to the phraseology which then became: "If we pull out of Malta".

I was fortunate to have been brought up there and we had a load of Maltese friends. When I met them in 1976, the most common question I received was: "Tell me it's not true that the UK is leaving the Island!"

[Pontius Navigator]

We went back for a holiday in '92. What was remarkable was the military barracks etc had simply been abandoned as if they were waiting for us to return. Bighi Hospital, as seen from Grand Harbour had, IIRC a massive set of doors that were open but the place desolate. The barracks at Tigne were only just being used as squats. Out of town there were camps, gates locked, barbed wire rusting but abandoned.

[TorqueOfTheDevil]

XV148,

Check PMs.

[Exrigger]

I was there from 74-77 as groundcrew, I was asked if I wanted to stay to the end but declined though not sure if that was a good or bad decision.

My memory was Mintoff and Gadaffi got in a deal over de-salination plants that Gadaffi would pay for in exchange for the use of Luqa with the RAF to leave.

I have some scanned in photos in a not very good condition (aged and discolored) taken of a Russian sub being loaded from a support ship in the Med, also some when we had to divert to Faro due to low fuel after a hairy attempt to land at Gibralter, and a couple of the Gibralter Hunters that decided to escort us in one day and play about on the wing tips, but I will let any aircrew who were on those trips add more detail if they so wish.

It was a good tour from my perspective, my wife who was of Maltese extraction was born in UK and had never been there and I never saw any trouble when there. Since then we have enjoy holidaying over there and the museum in Valetta used to have a whole section on 203 sqn, but I could not find it last time I went.

[tezzer]

I was lucky enough to get an overseas Summer camp to Malta in I think 1976 (?) or thereabouts and we were billeted in Hai Far ?(sp), but did most of the week at Luqa.

As a snco (flight sergeant Staff cadet I think) I was given the chance of a trip in a Nimrod on the proviso that I had my hair cut there and then to bring it to regulation length. To that end, I had a mate in the barracks hack it short with a pair of scissors, looked a right dog's breakfast, but at least it was short !

And so on the bus to Luqa, only to get stood down at the 11th hour as there was "a bit of a flap " on, some vessel of interest that took precedence over our air experience flight.

So near, so far.

[fincastle84]

I was SNavO 75-78. I well remember watching the Air Malta 707 (Pakistan Airways with a Pakistani crew), doing CT on the new runway 31. It managed a heavy landing on the nose gear which detached on rotate, depositing the gear amongst the Victors neatly lined up outside the Nimrod hangar.

203 kindly let me keep my hand in & occasionally even conveyed me to Akrotiri.

My Maltese staff in flight planning were heart broken with the closure of Luqa. I can honestly say that I enjoyed my 3 years there but have had no desire to return.

[Gerontocrat]

Tezzer, were you one of the detachment that had to be pulled out of Valletta one night because there was a bit of an anti-Brit nause going, shots fired etc?
You are right, air cadet camps were based at Hal Far - afaik the last time the old Officers' Mess there was used by British forces. I was based there for the whole summer of 1976 as Adj Air Cadet camps.

[5aday]

Nimrods in Malta

We started our posting to Malta by forming up with 38 sqn as a holding unit at St Mawgan, sharing accommodation with the resident Canberras. Mintoff had already started creating so we had two or maybe three crews on this holding unit.
We finally arrived in LMML as crew 1 in the lead aeroplane skippered by S/L Patterson and almost instantly set about partying (as Nimrod crews often did) and that lasted until Mintoff and Carrington fell out. The crewing was all changed around and I ended up on Crew 2 with ‘Keefy’ Merret as the skipper. I mentioned our intrepid flight to Gozo and back again in the previous post. And then it finally started – the withdrawal - on New Years Eve and our crew were deployed to Akrotiri. This was the start of six months bouncing around. I was single but the married guys had to endure their families being sent to crappy records quarters at Gaydon .
We flew into Akrotiri to be met by nothing except a dog handler. A bus finally arrived and we were taken to the mess where a big celebration was evident.
Arriving in the mess the CMC (dressed in a ballerinas tutu) told our very senior Master Aircrew Air Engineer that we could not enter the mess in overalls. We were allowed about 14 kg of personal kit ex LMML so fancy dress did
not make the packing list. (I had two changes of shreddies and socks and my four bottles of Southern Comfort from my bunk in Luqa. I left everything else behind and never saw any of it again . Our Eng told this CMC in no uncertain terms that the Malta withdrawal had started about 5 hours ago and he will have to get used to Nimrod crews ruling the roost in the Akrotiri (his) mess.
After about three days on the Keo the Station Commander summoned our captain and asked him to tone things down a bit as he was trying to get his station back to work. We repaired back to Malta again on about the 10th January to give a hand and helped with the withdrawal – parking cars (owned by 203 crews who were away on trips or training) for shipment home with RN and RFA ships, packing things up in general and trying to sell things off to anyone who would have them (tv sets , washing machines, Fridges etc) I ended up throwing some things into the sea off Dingli Cliffs.

Every Kg on every ASC c130 flight to the UK was accounted for and filled with personal effects. Finally we departed with another aeroplane to Sigonella - It was ok to begin with as our accommodation was in the Central Palace in downtown Catania. Our first operational flight out of Sig was a comedy of errors and someone ordered Alitalia meals from Fontanarossa catering. Well - poncy angel cakes and a small bottles of Italian rosso at a crazy rate of Lira is not the thing of Nimrod Galleys.
Our next flight was catered by the US In Flight Galley at Sigonella. Free for enlisted men and one dollar for each officer – and almost any amount of food you could carry on board. The Americans were brilliant to us. Far better than our own types in Akrotiri who just seem to think we would rape and pillage their base.

Life carried on between Akrotiri where, if I recall correctly, we often had two Nimrods, and training fortnights in the St Mawgan Simulator and back to a very wintery Sigo piggin nella. We were using the Italian Mess for lunch and the Aeroplanes didn’t do a great deal except the occasional dry trip around the soviet anchorages and the occasional SAR. The Italian mess served crude Vino Tinto at lunch so the afternoons were invariably a write off. One of the aeroplanes was manned as a comcen alternating with CW to and from Episkopi, and Voice comms on Upavon. There were two routes back from the mess to the aeroplane - one a circuitous route and the other meant jumping a ditch. In the ditch was bamboo shoots growing so you would have thought that anybody jumping the ditch would have taken that into account especially after the Vino Tinto. My room mate, who will remain nameless, miss cued his vino induced jump and fell into the ditch. He went into an Italian hospital with a bamboo ‘spear’ right through the palm of his hand and out the other side. If he reads this he might just own up.
Next we were moved to a holiday camp and things went rapidly down hill from there.
Right –time for the pub.

[XV148]

Nimrods in Malta

I too was at ATC camp in Malta in 1977, based out of Hal Faf. My memories of that trip were the large number of Nimrods still on station there. If only I could find the camp photograph taken in front of a Nimrod during August 1977 (the week Elvis died!!).

I have been working for the past ten years on a book on the Nimrod and I want to make sure the Malta nimrods and crews are not religated to a short paragraph as is often done in most Nimrod books.

I didnt pick up any hostilities from locals or from station personnel so these comments are interesting, keep the stories coming.

Thanks XV148

[5aday]

Nimrod in Malta.

I am sure any aggression towards us based at Luqa was purely the thugs in Mintoffs labour party. The average Maltese man women and child was so incredibly nice towards us and the older Maltese generation knew better than to bite the hand. We were told that we contributed £35m to their economy and during the withdrawal that part of their economy almost but disappeared. The lesson was not wasted in Mintoffs office either.
His connection with Gadaffi and Libya was well documented and his invitation to Gadaffi and in particular ,his commandos, to fly into Luqa ostensibly to take over the airfield, was neatly rebuffed by the presence of 42 marine surrounding Gadaffis men.
There was in incident over the med north of Libya which apparently involved some U.S. aeroplanes going against some of the Libyan Air Force. This resulted in a restriction of us not transiting south of N35.00.00 for a while but I've heard that a C130 with a few funny bits on it did and probed the area a few times before they shot up his (Gadaffis)palace in Tripoli -was that about the time of Pan Am?
I don't know if that N35 thing was ever rescinded.

[5aday]

Perhaps if there are any of the navs from 203 in the early 70's around they could elaborate a bit further.

[Geehovah]

I was on APC at Luqa in 1977 just before we were invited to leave.

An Air Malta Boeing 720 was carrying out crew training and had been pounding the circuit for a few hours. After a particularly firm landing, the trainee slammed the nosewheel onto the runway and, given the stresses and strains of mishandling, it promptly separated from the aircraft and bounced off under its own steam.

Foam was laid on Mr Mintoff's brand new runway and the 720 orbited for another hour or so until it was down to a sensible landing weight. After a nice piece of flying by (I'm sure) The Captain, the nose was lowered carefully to the tarmac and the aircraft stopped safely. The runway was black for quite a few hours.

The link with the Nimrods was that the 203 Sqn line was to the left hand side of the runway when viewed from the approach. As the nosewheel left the Boeing, it bounced majestically down the runway narrowly missing the line of parked aircraft. One observer said it actually bounced between 2 Nimrods before heading for the bundu. Luckily the 720 stayed on the runway after landing so the carnage of hitting a parked Nimrod was avoided.

I may even have a news clip of the incident somewhere in the boxes.

Apologies because its a very grainy, cropped image but if you look closely you can just see the Nimrods in the background lined up parallel to the runway.

[threeputt]

I was on detachment at RAF Luqa, in Vulcan XM 594, in the period 8-15 Nov 77 when this happened (don't remember the exact date). We were taxying back after landing on the southwesterly runway and the 707 was doing approaches to the northerly runway. I was stood on the ladder between the two pilots when I spotted this large object bouncing between the parked Nimrods; how none of them were hit was a miracle.

I am not completely sure but I also seem to remember that a Canberra jumped its chocks in an overnight storm and ran off downhill until it met with the perimiter wire!

3P

[Gerontocrat]

Threeputt: that brings to mind I heard last summer that the Marsa golf club has named one of the holes (or was it bunkers!!) after Freddie Fielding (RIP)